Occupational safety and health (OSH) in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have not received the proper
attention not only in Malaysia, but in most of the countries globally, in terms of research or support for implementation.
This research focuses on the implementation of the occupational safety and health in small and medium industries in
the southern region of peninsular of Malaysia. The objective of this research is to determine the level of awareness of
SME owners and also their employers towards the importance of implementing OSH in their daily tasks. This study
will be based on conducting a survey to 200 SMEs owners and workers throughout the southern region of Malaysia.
The results from this research can be use as a benchmark for other researchers to further enhance the research in this
area.
Occupational safety and health (OSH) in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have not received the proper
attention not only in Malaysia, but also in most countries all over the world, in terms of research or support for
implementation. In Malaysia, many agencies such as the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH),
Social Safety Organization (SOCSO), National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and many more
agencies related to OSH have been in collaborations to conduct and promote a safety working environment and to
protect human rights economically, morally and legally. This research mainly focuses on the implementation of the
occupational safety and health in small and medium industries in the southern region of peninsular of Malaysia. This
exploratory study will be based on conducting a survey to 500 SMEs owners and workers throughout the southern
region of Malaysia to get the in-depth knowledge on how the implementation of safety and health management system
in the SMEs will affect them both morally and economically. A site visit will also be conducted in order to enhance
and to get to know the real situation happening in the real working environment. The results of this study will be used
to make and initial evaluation of the implementations of OSH management system in SMEs and hopefully will help
for future interventions and researches.
Studying in a foreign country is one of the ways to enhance students’ competencies in facingchallenges of global competitivenessand inbeingmarketablefor future career choices. This research investigatesthe impact of cross-cultural adaptation among Malaysian students (N=245) who enrolledin various universities in Japan.Quantitative method was used to examinechangesinthe following fivefactors: personal changes, cross-cultural awareness, cross-cultural interaction, global mindedness and intellectualdevelopment. The findings demonstratethat studyingabroad bringspositive outcomesin students’ personal development. Hence,student mobility isan invaluable experience and administrators shouldsupport and encourageyoung people to explore “real life” globally.
Self performance is important among entrepreneurs due to increasing the business enhancement.
Nevertheless, previous literature showed that there are less current study which focused on the self
performance using Biofeedback techniques among entrepreneurs in Malaysia. Thus, this study was
aimed; 1) to look at how Emwave Biofeedback techniques can be used to improve self performance
among Ikhtiar Malaysia women entrepreneurs and 2) to improve the HRV score among participants
through increased the HF coherence. A total of 10 respondents were recruited in this study. The
changing nature of Heart Rate variability (HRV) of HF, LF and VLF frequencies was measured
through Biofeedback Emwave training techniques. The HRV Biofeedback techniques were used to
determine the emotional state and the balance ability between individual Sympathetic and
Parasympathetic systems. This balance is important to enable women entrepreneurs to control internal
and external stimuli to be adapted to their business environment. The study showed that the technique
is able to improve the characteristics of HRV to increase self performance among women
entrepreneurs. The study found that respondents who successfully completed the HRV training able to
increase their self performance in term of HRV score and businesses. Result showed that there was a
positive correlation (0.80-1.00) between all the business and HRV. This showed that Emwave
Biofeedback training is appropriate to be used as an intervention program to improve self performance
and business enhancement among the participants. Thus, this study concludes that HRV Biofeedback
techniques can be an important measure in gauging business entrepreneur’s health and performance.
The ability to enhance the entrepreneurial skills of small entrepreneurs is the key factor to the increase
in business. Nevertheless, previous literature showed that there is less current study which focused on
the methods to improve entrepreneurial skills using Biofeedback techniques among entrepreneurs in
Malaysia. Thus, this study was aimed to: 1) Identifying the demographic background of small
entrepreneurs, 2) Identify management capabilities among entrepreneurs in entrepreneurial skills and 3) Identify the profile of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) among small entrepreneurs through increased the
HF coherence. A total of 50 respondents of small entrepreneurs were recruited in this study. The data
collected involved a questionnaire survey with participants, profit and sales analysis and analysis of
HRV. Statistical correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial
skills and business insights from the point of HRV. The finding shows that there is a very strong
relationship between the increases in entrepreneurial skills from an increase in business with the profile
of HRV among participants with the score of 0.80-1.00. This showed that HRV Biofeedback training
technique is appropriate to be used as an intervention program to increse entrepreneurship skills among
small entrepreneurs in Malaysia.
HIV /AIDS is a global epidemic problem that is faced by many countries. There is a drastic increase of infection cases in children, youths, adults and elderly. Among students, there is a low level of knowledge that affects the comprehension elasticity based on the educational level which contributes to the increasing stigma among students. The focus of this study is to examine the differences of HIV/AIDS knowledge levels and students' stigma according to their levels of education. This study used HIV Knowledge Questionnaires (HIV-K-Q) version of 45 items and The Berger HIV Stigma Scale version of 40 items. 130 students from UKM and GMI participated in the study. Results showed that there were significant differences in the knowledge levels and stigma of HIV/AIDS between students' educational levels (Diploma level, Bachelor and Masters). The findings can assist educational institutions to develop the awareness of HIV/AIDS knowledge by targeting all levels of students' education. The implementation of various campaigns, talks, and interventions of reducing the stigma should be refined and planned as an annual program.
Now-a-days, understanding consumers’ buying motive is much more important for the marketers. As there is very limited literature in this field and no full version of psychometric tool are available for measuring consumer buying motive, we have taken initiative to develop ‘Consumers’ Buying Motive Assessment Tool’ (CBMAT). 388 early adult respondents were used in this study. In EFA, we found two-dimensional model of CBMAT having three factor at each dimension, comprising 26 items which explained 53.63% of sub-total variance of ‘Emotional’ dimension and 50.90% of sub-total variance of ‘Rational’ dimension. In both dimension, the reliability was high enough (Cronbach’s α of ‘Emotional’ = .826 and .837 for the ‘Rational’ dimension). We found high convergent validity within the same dimensional factors and high discriminant validity among different dimensional factors. By considering cutoff point (39), buyers’ motive can be low or high in both dimensions which comprises four types buyer motive such as ‘Equivocal’; ‘Utilitarian’; ‘Affective’ and ‘Indifferent’. These findings help to gain the psychometric properties of CBMAT which also support the ‘Dual Process Theory’. This study opens the door of further research on consumer buying motive.
The effects of HVA-2 on radiation-induced cross-linkings in 60/40 natural rubber/ linear low density polyethylene (NR/LLDPE) blends was studied. NR/LLDPE was irradiated by using a 3.0 MeV electron beam machine with doses ranging from 0 to 250 kGy. Results showed that under the irradiation employed, the blends NR/LLDPE were cross-linked by the electron beam irradiation. The presence of HVA-2 in the blends caused the optimum dose to decrease and the blends to exhibit higher tensile properties. Further, within the dose range studied, the degradation caused by electron beam irradiation was found to be minimal. The optimized processing conditions were 120oC, 50 rpm rotor speed and 13 min processing time. The gel content, tensile strength, elongation at break, hardness and impact test studies were used to follow the irradiation-induced cross-linkings in the blend. For blends of 60/40 NR/LLDPE with 2.0 phr HVA-2, the optimum tensile strength and dose, were 19 MPa and 100 kGy, respectively. Blends of 60/40 NR/LLDPE without HVA-2, the optimum tensile strength and dose were 17.2 MPa and 200 kGy, respectively.
HOMO and LUMO of organic compounds are basic parameters for the design and fabrication of an organic solar cell. This paper presents a technique to obtain HOMO and LUMO of an n-type polymer of [6,6]-phenyl C61-butyric acid 3-ethylthiophene ester (PCBE) and a p-type polymer of poly (3-octyl-thiophene-2, 5-diyl) (P3OT). The energy of band gap for each material has been calculated using optical absorption spectrum. Cyclic Voltammetry was used to estimate the oxidation potential and energy band diagram consequently. The experiments were carried out in a three-electrode cell consisting of a platinum working electrode, a platinum counter electrode and a SCE reference electrode. P3OT showed energy band gap equal to 1.83 eV with HOMO and LUMO equal to 5.59 eV and 3.76 eV, respectively. PCBE showed energy band gap equal to 1.96 eV with HOMO and LUMO equal to 5.87 eV and 3.91 eV, respectively. Based on energy band diagram that was constructed from this experimental result, the couple materials may be successfully used to fabricate the feasible organic solar cells.
Infiltration caused by rainfall will lead to the changes of moisture content and soil pore water pressure or matric suction of the soil. These changes indicate the behavior of the soil especially during wetting and drying process. This paper presents the experimental test result of rain water infiltration into soil column for two samples of soils. The main objectives were to study the effect of rainfall intensity and duration of soil infiltration process for the forest soil and to compare its result to the gravelly sand. Infiltration experimental in this study involved three main components; water supply system, soil column and instrumentations, including percolation collection system. This study uses two types of tensiometers; 5 and 10 cm long. The results of TDR and tensiometers which were used to obtained moisture content and matric suction, respectively, shows that the system was successfully developed. For the forest soil, the result showed that moisture content of the top section is higher compared with the other sections. On the other hand, for gravelly sand, the moisture content in middle section is higher compared with the top and bottom section of the soil. Meanwhile, matric suction for both soils dropped during rainfall and gradually increases towards drying process. Other than that the comparison of soil matric suction between 5 and 10 cm tensiometers shows significant results for gravelly sand compared to forest soil.
This study assessed the feasibility of a syntactic analysis of newspaper editorials and to test out Morenberg’s (2010) syntactic theory. The purposes of this study hence, were to develop appropriate research questions and to determine whether Morenberg’s (2010) theory could be employed for the syntactic analysis of editorials. By adopting this theory, one editorial from The Star (2018), Malaysia and two editorials from The Sun (2018a, 2018b), UK were analysed, with the intention of investigating the concept of syntax to highlight the styles and constructions in professional writing. Sentences obtained from these three editorials were broken down via tree diagramming to answer the first research question - what are the syntactic patterns used in editorials in newspapers? The tree diagrams of all sentences were then examined to answer the second research question - are there syntactic differences in editorials? The study found the basic patterns of the sentences of all editorials used mostly transitive verbs, with the inclusion of many VBE verbs and very few intransitive and two-place transitive Vc verbs. Optional elements in the syntactic patterns, however, varied according to their different orders in sentence builds. Tree diagramming of the sentences revealed few noticeable differences in terms of sentence mood, structural parallelism, employment of wh-clause as well as subject ellipsis.
An investigation on a batch production of palm kernel oil polyol (PKO-p) was conducted via esterification and condensation.
The process design was thoroughly studied as a preliminary step for future upscaling. The process variables included
necessity of vacuum pump, controlling of heating rate, recording the production time, nitrogen gas flow and agitator
speed. About 250 mL PKO-p was successfully synthesized within 3 h. Vacuum pressure was applied to haul out moisture
from the system. The control of heating rate and production time are vital to avoid sudden oxidation.
Laboratory and pot experiments were conducted at the Department of Weed Science, The University of Agriculture
Peshawar, Pakistan during fall 2011 and repeated in 2012. Allelopathic plants were used against wheat and associated
weeds. Allelopathic plants showed significant activity against three selected species - Triticum aestivum, Avena fatua
and Rumex crispus. Aqueous extracts of Parthenium hysterophorus and Datura alba showed significant effect against
weeds of Triticum aestivum although aqueous extract of Phragmites australis possessed moderate activity. It was noted
that aqueous extract of Oryza sativa and control were comparable for all parameters studied. Aqueous extract of P.
hysterophorus and D. alba decreased seed germination, shoot length, fresh and dry biomass as compared to the rest
of the treatments. The degree of toxicity of different treatments can be placed in the following order of inhibition: P.
hysterophorus > D. alba > P. australis > O. sativa ≥ control. The present studies showed that the plants used contain water
soluble allelochemicals that retard or inhibit the germination, growth and biomass of other species. These experiments
suggests that P. hysterophorus, D. alba and P. australis extracts may have negative effect on major weeds like A. fatua
and R. crispus. Thus there is a possibility of using these plant extracts for weed management. However, more extensive
studies is required to identify the allelopathins responsible for inhibitory effects on seed germination and plant growth.
Dengue fever is a vector-borne viral disease which is now endemic in more than 100 countries affecting more than 2.5 billion people worldwide. In recent years, dengue fever has become a major threat to public health in Pakistan. In this paper, we derived an explicit formula for reproduction number R0 (the most important epidemiological parameter) and then used real data of dengue fever cases of different hospitals of Lahore (Pakistan) on R0. Conditions for local stability of equilibrium points are discussed. In the end, simulations are carried out for different situations.
An automatic approach, for reverse engineering of digitized hand printed and electronic planar objects, is presented which is useful for vectorizing the generic shapes. The rational cubic function were used to find the optimal solution of the curve fitting problem with the help of a soft computing technique genetic algorithm which finds appropiate values of shape parameters in the description of rational cubic functions.
The benefits of using structural lightweight concrete in construction industry, particularly in high rise buildings, over normal weight concrete are numerous. The main method of producing structural lightweight concrete is the use of lightweight aggregates instead of ordinary aggregates in concrete. Due to the limited resources for natural and artificial lightweight aggregates, the alternative sources for lightweight aggregates should be discovered from industrial wastes. Oil palm shell (OPS) and oil-palm-boiler clinker (OPBC) are two solid wastes from palm oil industry and are available in abundance in tropical regimes. The use of just OPS as coarse lightweight aggregate in concrete mixture has some drawbacks for concrete. The aim of this study was to investigate engineering properties of a lightweight concrete containing both of these aggregates. For this purpose, in this study, 50% (by volume) of OPS was replaced with OPBC in an OPS lightweight concrete. The test results showed that when OPS was substituted with OPBC, significant improvement was observed in the compressive, splitting tensile and flexural strengths. In addition, initial and final water absorption as well as drying shrinkage strain of blended coarse lightweight aggregate concrete were significantly less than OPS concrete.
A study on reflow soldering process for Sn3.5Ag solder on ENIG substrate was performed using the rapid thermal processing (RTP) system. The reflow soldering process by RTP system can be successful, but it is sensitive to some typical defects. A poor RTP system design can lead to significant temperature differences where non-uniform heating or cooling may result in material failure due to increase in thermal stresses or serious damage. From this study, it was found that at a peak temperature (Tea) of 251 °C, the reflowed solder was observed to be smooth joint appearance over the solder pad and formed a regular joint shape of the solder due to the efficient reflow profile and sufficient heating input during the reflow process. The Ni3Sn4 intermetallic compounds were found to be continuous, thus resulting in a good metallurgical bonding between Sn3.5Ag solder and ENIG substrate. Meanwhile, an uneven reflowed solder and defect mechanism was detected at Teak of 246 and 260°C. This is due to the inadequate reflow profile and insufficient heating input during the p reflow soldering process in the RTP system. Visual micrographs of reflowed solder and cross-sectional micrograph and elemental analysis were presented in this paper for better understanding of the defect mechanism in order to optimize the reflow soldering process using RTP system. The reflow soldering process can be performed better with appropriate reflow profile in the RTP system in order to achieve a good solder joint of Sn3.5Ag solder and ENIG substrate.
Information on semiconductor/superconductor interface is important in fabricating devices of such hybrid systems. In
this paper the electrical properties and AC susceptibility of Tl2
Ba2
CaCu2
O8
(Tl-2212) superconductor added with CdTe
semiconductor are reported. Samples with nominal starting composition Tl2
Ba2
CaCu2
O8
(CdTe)x with x = 0 to 0.20 weight
percent (wt. %) have been prepared by the solid-state reaction method. X-ray diffraction patterns showed essentially
the Tl-2212 phase with presence of impurities (CuO and Tl2
Ba2
CuO6
) for x ≥ 0.05 wt. % but did not change the Tl-2212
structure which is tetragonal with lattice parameter a = b ≠ c. The critical onset temperature, Tc-onset for all samples was
between 104 and 108 K while the critical zero resistance temperature, Tc-zero was from 93 to 95 K. The superconducting
transition determined by AC susceptibility measurement showed Tcχ’ between 101 and 103 K. The peak temperature, Tp
of
the imaginary part of the susceptibility χ” decreased for x = 0.05 and then increased for x > 0.05. This indicated that the
superconducting grains were strongly coupled for x > 0.05 as a result of CdTe addition. The intergrain critical current
density, Jc
at Tp
for the x = 0.2 sample Jc (Tp
= 95 K) = 23 A cm-2was the highest among all samples. This sample also
showed the highest Tp
indicating CdTe improved the flux pinning of the Tl-2212 phase. This result can be useful in the
fabrication of semiconductor/superconductor (Tl-2212) hybrid devices.
Porphyromonas gingivalis is the bacterium responsible for chronic periodontitis, a severe periodontal disease. Virulence
factors produced by this bacterium are secreted by the Type IX Secretion System (T9SS). The specific functions for
each protein component of the T9SS have yet to be characterized thus limiting our understanding of the mechanisms
associated with the translocation and modification processes of the T9SS. This study aims to identify the sequence motifs
for each T9SS component and predict the functions associated with each discovered motif using motif comparisons. We
extracted the sequences of 20 T9SS components from the P. gingivalis proteome that were experimentally identified to
be important for T9SS function and used them for homology searching against fully sequenced bacterial proteomes.
We developed a rigorous pipeline for the identification of seed sequences for each protein family of T9SS components.
We verified that each selected seed sequence are true members of the protein family hence sharing conserved sequence
motifs using profile Hidden Markov Models. The motifs for each T9SS component are identified and compared to motifs
in the Pfam database. The discovered motifs for 11 components with known functions matched the motifs associated
with the reported functions. We also suggested the putative functions for four components. PorM and PorW might form
the putative energy transduction complex. PorP and PorT might be the putative O-deacylases. The identified motifs for
five components matched the motifs associated with functions that related/unrelated to the T9SS.
Sustainability is a worldwide objective in balancing the gradual rise of human requirements and the decay of resources. In further aspect, the conceptual paper studies the sustainability performance of new techniques to control sewage contamination in order to prevent foul odors into the habitable space from drainage network, which is important for the healthiness and comfort of living environment. Waste drain pipe is a prominent facility in service engineering development and it is essential in regulating sewage contamination that is commonly obstructed by ungoverned disposal of debris by domestics and commercial buildings. This act is common and consistent in arising disturbance causing the failure of sewage management. This research emphasizes on the innovative establishment of a new controlling method upon sewage contamination known as Black Air Gun (BAG); this indicator is operated based on Perceived Sustainability Performance Indicators (PSPI). This indicator functions to evaluate the impact of BAG upon sewage contamination control. Furthermore, PSPI can acknowledge the sustainability issue of BAG usage in sewage management as a basis for evaluating the impact of BAG towards sewage contamination control. Adopting PSPI in this study will effectively provide a sustainable establishment attained for improvement of people’s quality of life in long term aspects.